Trapper John wrote:Yeah I'd rather Lacazette take them but with power because he can really hit a ball, whereas I don't think Auba can as much. I hate those stop, start, chip penalties, drives me nuts - power everytime for me.

I think about that penalty, it was rather Auba not taking the chance of his hat-trick was what they meant by that - not that he had any superiority over Lacazette, that sort of unwritten rule where the team-mate on a hat-trick is expected to take it.

The fact that Auba didn't press to take it and rather let Lacazette who had been suffering low confidence before his injury, was a nice touch and what was meant by that he gave it to Lacazette whereas no-one would expect him to pass over the opportunity of an HT.

If that lot makes any sense.

I think the hat-trick thing was why people assumed he gave it to Lacazette, especially with Lacazette needing a confidence booster. it could have been that, or it could have been AW has Lacazette down to take them regardless of who else is on the pitch. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't have thought he leaves it to the players to decide amongst themselves.

I saw the stats recently, off the top of my head - Auba has missed 7 from 28 and Laca has missed 5 from 31/32, so Laca has the better record as well.

Sods law now we get one tonight and Lacazette blasts it over the bar!

Yeah I don't care if we score in the first minute and the rest of the game is a boring dead rubber.

Arsenal didn't exactly cover themselves in glory last night against a CSKA Moscow side buoyed up with hopes of continuing a week of upsets in European football.

Once again our start was lethargic and lazy giving the Russianns even more hope of a turn around in fortunes. At half time we were 1-0 down and pleased to hear the whistle. Things went from bad to worse 5 minutes after the restart as CSKA scored a second and they began to realise they were within a goal of going into the semi finals at the Gunners expense.

Arsenal however weathered the following storm and beagn to play better after some reshuffles in shape and personnel. At 15 minutes from full time, Arsenal were in control and CSKA were running out of steam, Danny Welbeck started a move on the left wing, passed to Elneny who return it for Welbeck to convert with aplomb to effectively end CSKA's dreams.

A late break for the Gunners in added time saw Aaron Ramsey convert an equally impressive finish into a further goal making it 2-2 on the night 6-3 on aggregate to Arsenal.

The draw for the semi finals takes place this morning at 11:00am - In the pot are Arsenal of course then Athletico Madrid who lost last night night 1-0 to Sporting Lisbon but through on agg. 2-1, RB Saltzburg who turned Lazio's lead into defeat by winning 4-1 last night (6-5agg.) and Marseille who after going a goal down at home came back to beat RB Liepzig 5-2 (5-3agg.)

Of course sods' law would dictate the draw this morning and Arsenal got Athletico Madrid, wouldn't you just know that would happen?

To further the disappointment, we've been drawn at home for first leg, which to me is neither here nor there but many believe it's a distinct disadvantage.

To be honest I'm not that unhappy because of the way the mindset of the Arsenal players seems to work.

That has clearly been displayed when they play so called minnow teams in both the Premier league and Europe. In Europe our second legs have all been well below par in comparison to the first, normally because we've got a good lead but mostly because of our casualness against what they must see as inferior sides and we've almost come a cropper several times with that attitude, firstly against Ostersunds and again against CSKA last night, second leg against Cologne wasn't impressive, neither was Bate.

So hopefully against a side like Madrid we'll be mentally better prepared and players will put in full performances instead of some of the half arsed ones we've seen so often this season.

I think maybe if we'd drawn either Saltzburg or Marseille the other semi finalists, we might be expected favourites and therefore not put in a performance in one of the legs, this time not being so lucky.

In the champions league semi final draw an hour later, Liverpool drew Roma and Bayern Munich got Real Madrid.

Liverpool fans appeared ecstatic to avoid the other two and get Roma, which on the surface of it looks fine only as I said in a previous thread Roma are the Lazarus side, they've come back from the dead several times this campaign, most notably when knocking out Barcelona.

If I was a Liverpool fan I would have preferred Madird who despite their reputation have looked poor under pressure all competition and their defence is pretty shaky.

So lets hope we can have two English teams in the finals of both European competitions, it's been a while.

Lastly, I thought it might be worth a mention of something which was posted here back in mid February.

A guest was questioning my choice of clubs I didn't fancy meeting in the round of 16 knockouts after Arsenal came through the group stages.

Of course guest didn't agree with most but made particular reference to these two with the comment:

LOL @ Sociedad or Salzburg being chosen

The exchange continued with my reply:

Can't see what amuses you over that choice in particular? I was merely highlighting teams I'd prefer to avoid and they are two.

Sociedad are a Basque side who are a tough opponents in one off cup games, like Bilbao which is why I chose them too, even though there is little to seperate them this season. Sociedad also give Barcelona a rough ride more often than not, so are capable of doing the same to Arsenal.

Salzburg are owned by Red Bull and Red Bull teams do well by and large in Europe due to their investment, Leipzig are a perfect example and which is maybe why Salzburg sit 5 points clear at the top of the Austrian league at present.

In reply guest said:

The Austrian league is crap as are Salzburg. Sociedad are a poor side that occasionally show up for a football match.

It went a bit silly for a few posts and guest decided he was beaten and sloped off.

So with some hindsight now, how did we fare with our arguments?

Well guest not very well at all and me, well I was vindicated as I knew I would be. The two teams he was rubbishing were drawing 2-2 at the time of posting in the round of 32 with the second leg to come.

RB Salzburg narrowly saw off Sociedad in Austria in that second leg with a 2-1 victory.

And of course we now know that crap Austrian team from the crap Austrian league are semi finalists, having beaten Lazio after clawing back from a 4-2 defeat in Italy to win 4-1 at home last night. So I had good reason to be worried about both, as I always knew.

Jay Jay wrote:Another win for the Hamlet.Poor finishing cost us a hat full of goals. 1,003 today.Plus we have secured a groundshare with Tooting and Mitcham for next season.

Massive top of the table clash at Folkestone next Saturday.I'll be there.

Thats a tidy crowd, least I assume it's the crowd and not the goals you should have got.

Hamlet's got a game in hand over Folkestone so even if you lose you'll still stay second. Would you take a draw now?

Just looking, Folkestone can knock 'em in, 100 goals so far but they do let 'em in as well, 65 all told. Hamlet have the best defence in the league and striking's not too shabby either, so actually I'm guessing you'll be quitely expecting a win next weekend.

I see there is only 1 automatic promotion, and a play-off spot, what league would you go into if you win the play-offs or even overhaul Billericay?

Game of the weekend again was Man City with everyone waiting to see if they can tie the league up with a victory against Spurs and Man United suffering catastrophic failure at home to bottom feeders West Brom today.

As it turned out the 1-3 result didn't reflect the game which should have had a double figures scoreline for City if referee Jon Moss had done his job right. City were by far the better team in the first half and were leading 2-0 after 25 minutes, a fortunate deflected toe punt from Eriksen saw Spurs claw one back before the break. Spurs played better in the second half but a third goal from Sterling put paid to a win.

Rewinding though, because by 30 minutes, Spurs should have been down to 9 men, one of those who should have gone off being goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. For the second successive game he has made bone crashing red card challenges against opposing strikers and got away with it. Yesterday he was already buoyed up by an early challenge where came out of his box leading with a high leg but as the striker pulled out and they didn't connect, Jon Moss let the incident go. Just as he did a little later.

Spurs fans will tell you that Moss awarded City a penalty when the challenge was outside the box. The only player who didn't complain was Hugo Lloris, he knew he had made a red card challenge but Moss took the easy option of awarding the penalty which wasn't in the box, so as to cover his retisence of sending off Lloris.

At 2-0 up City were pressing hard, which is when Ben Davies made a leg breaking tackle on Vincent Kompany which was nowhere near the ball, it was intentional and no-one had any doubt, except Jin Moss again who wasn't 10 yards away with a perfect view, only gave him a yellow.

These would have been VAR referals and both Davies and Lloris would have got their marching orders. The resultant disadvantage would have given City ample opportunity to put in a least another half dozen goals from such an early point in the game.

So City, though winners will have to wait for another day to be crowned Champions, not today though I think.

Spurs on the other hand will now be worrying if their top 4 spot is in danger, with Chelsea winning their game against Southampton 2-3 with their own slice of fortune or bad refereeing more like, keeping them with 11 men on the pitch and some sloppy decisons from Mike Dean.

Burnely continued their excellent run to keep a European place on the cards with a 2-1 home victory against Leicester with both Huddersfield and Swansea keeping their premier league hopes alive with the former winning 1-0 against a very poor Watford and the latter getting a decent 1-1 draw against Everton.

Newcastle entertain Arsenal at lunchtime today, in what will be a tough game for the Gunners with the aforementiond Man Utd playing West Brom later.